Euclid Art Association's September Meeting Featured Member Demonstration by Suzette Cohen
Euclid Art’s 2017-2018 season got off to a fantastic start. Our meeting on Monday, September 11 was well attended by over 40 members and guests. Our president, Lee Peters, acknowledged the 16th anniversary of 911 and after a brief business meeting, Suzette Cohen started her demonstration on poured or fluid acrylics. Lee’s audio/visual setup was superb and as a result, every seat in Fellowship Hall had a clear view of Suzette’s attention getting demonstration....we watched her create amazing and beautiful abstracts. And, for the evening, we all let our imagination ‘go with the flow’!
“There are no brushes involved in this technique”, Suzette said as she puts on a pair of ‘rubber’ gloves to get ready. “This is a messy process....paint comes off skin but not fabric,” she warns. Suzette says that most of the time is spent preparing the paints. She adds ‘Floetrol’, which can be purchased from Home Depot, to her archival quality acrylic paints...less expensive paints may crack over time. She tests the consistency of the paint by how well it flows off a wooden ‘popsicle’ stick. After preparing the back of the canvas, by taping over the wood, and placing pushpins in the corners for ease of lifting it off the table, she is almost ready to pour. Don’t forget the plastic tarp, large aluminum pan and freezer paper to catch the drippings, which she saves for ‘making skins’....you can look that up on the internet.
Poured or fluid acrylics can go by many different names and there are even more different techniques used. Suzette demonstrated two of them for us.....puddles and dirty pour. For the puddles technique, she dropped purple paint puddles onto the canvas, then added more puddles on top of puddles using different colors. She moved the canvas around, flowing the paint to create interesting visual effects....blowing on the canvas through a straw created even more movement. The dirty pour technique is similar, but first she put paint into a plastic cup, layering white, red, yellow, then orange, until the cup was full of paint....in no specific order or amount. Then, she flipped the cup over onto the canvas and let the paint completely pour out. Suzette suggested that you ‘be in the moment’ and have fun playing with it. The hardest thing may be to know when to stop!
Suzette says it takes a minimum of 3 days to dry. After a month, she coats her creations with clear satin Minwax. Her last bit of advice....”while pouring, don’t get an itch!”
The theme for the evening’s refreshments was ‘Remembering 911’. We thank our hosts, Nancy Daly and Sue and Tom Herrle. Everyone enjoyed the assortment of goodies, including Sue’s two braided pastries, representing the twin towers, Nancy’s homemade brownies, assorted veggies, pretzels, cheese and crackers and apple cider.
We hope to see you at EAA’s next meeting on Monday, October 2, featuring artist, Christine Weigand, demonstrating Painting with Cut Paper. The meeting starts at 7:00pm at the East Shore United Methodist Church, 23002 Lakeshore Blvd, Euclid in the Fellowship Hall. Guests are always welcome for a $3.00 donation. Check out our website....EuclidArt.com for more details.
Euclid Art Members
Euclid Art Association purpose is to stimulate an interest in the visual arts among our members and to provide a focus on the fine arts for the community.